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Analysis is a type of primary research that involves finding and interpreting patterns in data, classifying those patterns, and generalizing the results. It is useful when looking at actions, events, or occurrences in different texts, media, or publications. Analysis can usually be done without considering most of the ethical issues discussed in the overview, as you are not working with people but rather publicly accessible documents. Analysis can be done on new documents or performed on raw data that you yourself have collected.

Here are several examples of analysis:

• Recording commercials on three major television networks and analyzing race and gender within the commercials to discover some conclusion.
• Analyzing the historical trends in public laws by looking at the records at a local courthouse.
• Analyzing topics of discussion in chat rooms for patterns based on gender and age.

Methods

Analysis research involves several steps:

• Finding and collecting documents.
• Specifying criteria or patterns that you are looking for.
• Analyzing documents for patterns, noting number of occurrences or other factors.